


the bitter unwanted passion

by gladdecease



Series: dysphoric metamorphosis [7]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Clairestiel, Community: prompt_in_a_box, Community: spn_30snapshots, Episode: s05e03 Free to Be You and Me, Gen, Gender Dysphoria, POV Second Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-13
Updated: 2012-07-13
Packaged: 2017-11-09 21:19:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 591
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/458559
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gladdecease/pseuds/gladdecease
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In some ways, it will be a relief to die.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the bitter unwanted passion

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Round 52 of [Prompt-in-a-Box](http://community.livejournal.com/prompt_in_a_box), where we could use prompts from any previous year. This fic is inspired by a prompt from the January 2011 round, which can be found in the end notes.
> 
> Takes place during the equivalent of "Free to Be You and Me" in a Supernatural AR I'm using the 30 snapshots challenge to develop. Unlike previous stories, this one borrows no dialogue from the episode, but knowledge of the episode will help you to understand the story.
> 
> Title from the poem [Self Portrait](http://www.davidwhyte.com/english_self.html), specifically the lines:  
> 
>
>>                                     I want to know  
> if you are willing  
> to live, day by day, with the consequence of love  
> and the bitter  
> unwanted passion of your sure defeat.

There is something inherently confining, restricting, about taking a vessel. To go from a manifestation of celestial intent, simultaneously as big as the universe and as small as a pin, the voices of your siblings a divine resonance frequency omnipresent in your being, to... a body. To a physical creature bound by laws of physics, by limited senses, by chemical impulses. It... reduces you, in a way. If Dean fully understood, he might call it "slumming." It is why so many of your siblings are reluctant to enter a body, and why those that do distance themselves from the sensations, the sheer physicality of it.

It's what you did at first.

But as you came to familiarize yourself with Jimmy Novak, you relaxed. Dropped your guard, allowed yourself to more fully inhabit him. There are advantages to that - your movements became smoother, your reaction times faster. When you had need of a body, you were better prepared to use it than your siblings, though they would have judged you for it if they knew why. You came to enjoy its quirks and intricacies, the little details of inhabiting it that annoyed you at first. You grew accustomed to a body, to _that_ body.

You didn't realize the disadvantages that came with doing so until far too late.

Sitting on the stool Dean directed you to, you look down at your legs, swaying in the foot of empty air between your toes and the floor, and hate them. Golden hair falls into your eyes, and you hate it. You hate the stiff denim jeans that are not your dress pants and you hate the brightly colored sneakers that are not your dark, polished shoes and you especially hate the worn cotton hoodie that is not your trenchcoat.

A waitress places a plate in front of you, a piece of pie nearly buried under a scoop of melting ice cream, and for a particularly absurd moment, you hate that too.

"C'mon, Cas," Dean says, misreading your anger. He stabs at his own piece of pie, eating with noises of exaggerated enthusiasm. "It's damn good pie," he insists.

Would he be feeding you pie this night, you wonder, if the body you inhabited was adult and male? If you were in Jimmy, as you should be? There are other pleasures of this world beyond food, but this is the only one Dean believes he can give you.

This is the only thing Dean thinks he can offer, to ease your suffering.

His concern, while misguided, is appreciated. You force yourself to try the pie, but to his disappointment find the ice cream to be the most palatable part of the dish. Still, seeing you make the attempt eases his own suffering, and for that cause you would do many worse things.

Have done many worse things.

You give Dean the remainder of the pie after eating all the ice cream you can stand, and look to the clock nearest the ceiling. Your hour of reckoning creeps ever closer, but as you sit there in your too-small body, unfamiliar tastes still sitting on your strange tongue, somehow unsatisfied with the way this, your last night, is passing, you allow yourself to feel how very _wrong_ this body is. Disgust and revulsion overwhelm you, for more reasons than you can count, and you shudder.

"What, can angels get brain freeze?" Dean asks skeptically. You give him an unamused glance, which he takes enjoyment from, and sigh.

In some ways, it will be a relief to die.

**Author's Note:**

> I want out from under this confining skin that I so reluctantly live in.  
> \- "Eyesore," by Maria Mena


End file.
